Economic Development Team Privacy notice

 We use your personal information to provide business advice & support services and allow us to:.

• verify your identity where required
• reply to your enquiry by post, email, or telephone
• maintain our records
• provide services to you
• prevent and detect crime, fraud, or corruption
• report on the number of clients using our services
• carry out statistical analysis to review and improve our services 

We provide business advice & support services to you as part of our duties as local government in Scotland. Where you have requested a service, we use your personal information to provide you with that service.

Processing your personal information is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest by the Council. In terms of our reporting obligations, processing your personal information is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the council is subject.

We also need to process more sensitive personal information about you for reasons of substantial public interest as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018. It is necessary for us to process it to carry out key functions as set out in law.

We ask for your consent to send you information via email and updates about the Council's Economic Development services which also includes Business Gateway services. These updates may include information on events that we are holding and information about the business support & advice services that are available to you from the partners.

If you decide that you no longer wish to receive these messages then you can opt out of future communications by sending an email to business@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk and asking us to stop.

We'll still communicate with you for other purposes in the ordinary course of any other relationship we have with you 

Processing your personal / business information may be necessary for the awarding of any grants or loans, or providing information to local businesses. If you do not provide us with the information we have asked for then we may not be able to provide this service to you. We'll not collect any personal data from you that is not needed for delivery of these services.

The information we collect may include details such as your name, addresses, telephone number, email address, bank account details, UTR (unique tax reference) number, business insurance details, premises lease or ownership details and non-domestic rates liability.

Other categories of personal data that we may process are:

• contact date of birth Information
• contact gender
• contact ethnic group
• contact disability status
• contact employment status

We'll generally comply with requests for specific information from regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate.

We may share your data internally where appropriate to assist with handling queries or providing information on other services available.

We also share your personal information with our service delivery partners to enable them to assist in the delivery of business advice & support services.

These partners include:

• Scottish Enterprise
• Highlands & Islands Enterprise 
• South of Scotland Enterprise
• Skills Development Scotland
• VisitScotland
• contractors who deliver services on our behalf

Your data will be held securely in our Management Information System (MIS) . The data will also be used to help develop policy and interventions that support our work in providing business advice and support.

We'll only keep your personal information for the minimum period amount of time necessary.

Sometimes this time period is set out in the law, but in most cases it is based on the business need. We maintain a records retention and disposal schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information for. 

Further information about how we manage our records can be found within our Integrated Business Classification and Records Retention Schedule (PDF, 2 MB) 

Read more about how we manage our records

Contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.

Depending on why we need to process your information you will have rights to how your information is used. Further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, can be found within our main privacy policypage published on our website.

If you have concerns about the processing of your personal data, by the council, you can contact the Data Protection Officer at dpo@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, visit the Information Commissioner's Office website